Irish uses a variation of the Latin alphabet, just like English. Irish does not have the letters Q, W, and Y. Irish has the letters J, K, V, X, and Z, but these are only used in borrowed foreign words. Out of them, only V is common.

Irish indicates long vowels with a diacritic called the síneadh fada or just fada. For example, a short A is written as A, while a long A is written as Á.

Because of these differences, Irish has 27 letters, 1 more than English. The Irish alphabet is:

Upper case

A

Á

B

C

D

E

É

F

G

H

I

Í

J

K

L

M

N

O

Ó

P

R

S

T

U

Ú

V

X

Z

Lower case

a

á

b

c

d

e

é

f

g

h

i

í

j

k

l

m

n

o

ó

p

r

s

t

u

ú

v

x

z

Diacritic — a mark added to a letter to change the way it is pronounced.

In total, there are 1,656,790 fluent speakers of Irish in the Republic of Ireland (click here to learn about Ireland), from the 2006 census. Only about 75,000 people use Irish as their first and daily language. The Irish language is a required subject in schools in the Republic of Ireland, so most Irish teenagers learn the language.

Irish is spoken mainly in the Gaeltachtaí, but it is also spoken in some of the homes of native Irish. People also love to speak it on holidays as it identifies them as not British, and only Irish people are fluent in the language.

It is unclear when Celtic languages, which Irish is one of, came to Ireland. Primitive Irish, the earliest form of the Irish language, appears to have died out around the 4th century CE. Old Irish, the next form of the Irish language, lasted until around the 10th century CE, when it was replaced by Middle Irish. Modern Irish, which is still spoken today, appeared around the 16th century CE.

Up until the 19th century, Irish was the most commonly spoken language in Ireland. During the 19th century and continuing on to today, the English language replaced much of the use of Irish in Ireland. Under British law in the early 19th century, people were banned from speaking Irish and were severely punished for doing so.

Irish is becoming more and more popular with Irish youth. It is used in day-to-day chat, and every summer thousands of students spend three weeks to a month in a Gaeltacht (Irish area) where nothing but Irish is spoken continuously.

Irish is one of the oldest written languages in the world, and was used by Early Irish Monks in beautiful illustrated manuscripts, such as the Book of Kells.

Ré Ó Laighleas is an author of Irish short-stories such as "Punk", "Séimí agus Anna", and "Na Bradmharcaigh". These are standard scéal (stories) that Secondary school "Árdléibheal" (Higher Level) Irish students must study, along with poems to prepare them for the Junior and Leaving Certificate examinations.